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NewsDay

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‘Fake honey’ floods market

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MARONDERA — Consumers who bought honey along Harare-Mutare Road were left counting their losses after discovering they had been duped into buying fake honey. “I bought the honey on my way from Nyazura to Harare in Marondera and I discovered later that the so-called honey was a sugar syrup coated with honey on top. I […]

MARONDERA — Consumers who bought honey along Harare-Mutare Road were left counting their losses after discovering they had been duped into buying fake honey.

“I bought the honey on my way from Nyazura to Harare in Marondera and I discovered later that the so-called honey was a sugar syrup coated with honey on top. I was very disappointed,” said Thandiwe Mukaro, an unsuspecting customer.

People who sell the fake honey target unsuspecting motorists who ply the road.

“Now, they know that no one in Marondera will buy their products and have resorted to selling to motorists who use the highway,” said Philemon Gombo, a Marondera resident.

“All major retail shops here were warned not to purchase honey from these bogus vendors because it’s counterfeit. Some of their customers fell sick after consuming the honey,” he added.

However, some vendors were reportedly purchasing the fake commodity from unscrupulous dealers along the Harare-Mutare highway for resale.

“Yes, the honey can be found at every black market in Marondera town, and it is increasingly becoming difficult to differentiate it from the genuine one because the packaging is the same,” narrated Gombo.

Investigations by NewsDay revealed that vendors buy sugar and mix it with water to make a sticky sugar solution or sugar syrup which resembles honey in appearance.

When this reporter visited some of the vendors along Harare-Mutare Road, bottles of the fake honey could be seen stashed in a nearby bush, with just a few at the roadside for display.

“We have many beehives in the bush and the bees produce the honey all year round. It is very cheap sir. For only $3 you can get a bottle,” said one vendor.

Upon inquisition, the vendors mistook this reporter for a policeman and disappeared in the nearby plantation. Most of the beehives vendors purport to have honey were empty with some showing bees migrated a while back.

One of the people who work in the plantation said the white farmer who used to keep bees left during the land reform programme and there were only a few beehives which still have bees.

“At first these guys (vendors) used to illegally harvest the honey, but now that the honey is increasingly becoming scarce, they have resorted to mix sugar syrup and honey so that they sell to unsuspecting motorists. We have cases where motorists came back demanding their money, but usually the vendors would disappear into the bush,” he said.

Health nutritionist Violet Kadzora urged the public to be wary of fake honey on the market saying sugar itself posed a serious health hazard.

She said: “What these vendors are doing is detrimental to people’s health. Sugar is very dangerous to humans.

The ‘glycemic index’ is a measure of how a given food affects blood-glucose levels, with each food being assigned a numbered rating.

“The lower the rating, the slower the absorption and digestion process, which provides a more gradual, healthier infusion of sugars into the bloodstream. On the other hand, a high rating means that blood-glucose levels are increased quickly, which stimulates the pancreas to secrete insulin to drop blood-sugar levels. These rapid fluctuations of blood-sugar levels are not healthy because of the stress they place on the body.”

She also said a major drawback in sugar is that it raises the insulin level, which inhibits the release of growth hormones, which in turn depresses the immune system.

“An influx of sugar into the bloodstream upsets the body’s blood-sugar balance, triggering the release of insulin, which the body uses to keep blood-sugar at a constant and safe level. Insulin also promotes the storage of fat, so that when you eat sweets high in sugar, you’re making way for rapid weight gain and elevated triglyceride levels, both of which have been linked to cardiovascular disease. Complex carbohydrates tend to be absorbed more slowly, lessening the impact on blood-sugar levels,” she said.

An official from the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe said they were yet to receive complaints from consumers about the “fake honey”, however, urged members of the public to desist from buying food stuffs from unlicensed vendors.

“This culture of buying edible goods from the street should stop. It is not always cheap to buy goods from the street especially when we want to consume the food. Some people find themselves losing a lot of money footing medical bills because of these foods,” he said.

During the past few years consumers got used to buying from any shop or roadside, as long as they could lay their hands on basic goods — without even looking at quality.

A recent report by the Zimbabwe Economic Society said local consumers were at the mercy of business and service providers due to exorbitant prices and generally poor goods which had flooded the market.

Liberalisation of the economy has arrested runaway inflation and improved availability of goods and services, but it has worsened the plight of consumers due to the proliferation of goods of questionable origin, says the report.